New Ships: Wow. My take.

[RavenWinterHawk]

UO has lost its edge. The edge was danger. Replaced by security and little risk.

Argue with me or not. I am right. The game has strengths and therefore, I stay and others do.

The strengths, custom building, persistant world (sandbox). I moved to being a mechant.

We now have the High-Seas booster. What will happen?

OK this....

Week one everyone gets a ship.
Week one we get the rarest, newest stuff and sell it to those that dont have the expansion.
Week one we enjoy the ships and complain of bugs.

Week two: we run our ships to find all the new monsters and battle.

Week three: bordem sets in because nothing is really random, the monsters are predictable and the news stuff saturates the market.

Week four: We still like the cool ships and firing cannons but there is really nothing to do.

The end. We now have ships that look cool and have a much easy cooler mode of transportation to hunt treasure chests. Which I think will be the secret boost in the expansion... SOS loot.


Why write this? Just my opinion as the 30 other threads. Anyones opinion is right. UO really needs to add a purpose to exploring and visiting places beyond the static quest, spawn, and trival event. I noticed this didnt seem to be addressed in the Town Halls.

What is so hard about making adventure part of the game (through the whole game) not JUST HIGH-SEAS ADVENTURE.

Ive acquired so much. I am bitter. (not really) but you get the point.

 

[Babble]

But EA made some cash of it.


They could add more dynamic spawns, though it is probably too much effort on their part now for an old game.
UO got to have themepark play without levels.

 

[unified]

After playing this game for a long time, it becomes like watching movies : you've seen it before. In UO, its that you've done it all before.

I am not without adventure in this game. I've had accounts for 11 years now, but have only played off and on during that time due to work and school. While this means that I couldn't enjoy the game as much during that time, it also means that there is little that bores me in the game.

The developers are naturally working very hard to make this game as apealing to as many players as possible. To this end, they will never please everyone.

Maybe the idea is that the average player will never fully acheive an expansion before the next one is developed? It works for me. I've only gone through one dungeon --- Despise --- all the way through in the whole time I've played. There's so many other things I've done.

Admittedly, treasure hunting has always been my favorite. The loot used to be awful, but I kept with it for the adventure of spawing creatures to fight.

 

[Pinco]

For me will never become boring so fast... I still farming shimmering effusion to complete the shimmering crystals collection and I have never really start to collect the SA items for now

 

[LordDrago]

Personally, I could hunt cows and have fun as long as my friends are with me. Sometimes we are crazy (I must be contagious), sometimes we are serious, but I always have fun with them no matter what we are doing.

Can't wait to do some sailing on a ship manned with my friends
(hey, can i drive? ppppllleeeeeeaaaasssseeeeee)
(what happens if i pull this cord on that cannon thing? ooops, sorry bout that)

I am personally looking forward to the boosters. Some I will like the content, some I won't. But I will enjoy them all with my friends.

 

[JC the Builder]

Week one we get the rarest, newest stuff and sell it to those that dont have the expansion.

I think there is a lot of room for making it so you can't get everything immediately. For one thing, some stuff is only available to legendary Fishermen or at least higher than 100 skill. Unless they ease fishing skill gain, it will take a long time to work up your skills.

They already mentioned they are making some fish spawn in certain areas. UO already has its own built in calendar (UO Stratics - Time). They could set it up so fish are only available certain months of the year, or are at least more plentiful during that time period. It would also be important not to explain any of this, let players figure it out on their own. If after a while some stuff is elusive, drop subtle hints. But I think after 6 months people will have it all down in spreadsheets. It would also enhance community by letting people share where is the best time to catch what fish.

If they just toss in all the fish like a monster spawn, then yeah everyone is going to have them within a week.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

I hope I am wrong. I forgot to mention, typically they announce everything and tell us everything. Its a mad race to get get get.

If we could just get the expansion. And be left to explore it, that might be fun.

Though I can hear the nay sayers now.

 

[Trebr Drab]

I think there is a lot of room for making it so you can't get everything immediately. For one thing, some stuff is only available to legendary Fishermen or at least higher than 100 skill. Unless they ease fishing skill gain, it will take a long time to work up your skills.

They already mentioned they are making some fish spawn in certain areas. UO already has its own built in calendar (UO Stratics - Time). They could set it up so fish are only available certain months of the year, or are at least more plentiful during that time period. It would also be important not to explain any of this, let players figure it out on their own. If after a while some stuff is elusive, drop subtle hints. But I think after 6 months people will have it all down in spreadsheets. It would also enhance community by letting people share where is the best time to catch what fish.

If they just toss in all the fish like a monster spawn, then yeah everyone is going to have them within a week.

I like this thought. Imagine if there were fish schools that moved around, and they didn't tell you that seeing a few seagulls was a hint that there's a school there.
Little things like that can make a very big difference in a Sandbox game.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

I like this thought. Imagine if there were fish schools that moved around, and they didn't tell you that seeing a few seagulls was a hint that there's a school there.
Little things like that can make a very big difference in a Sandbox game.

Exactly. That kind of stuff. Granted, I want no clues to start from the exansions. But I read stratics. Go figure.

But to fix my above statement. Id like to find out that seaguls give you clues from stratics because someone explored then use the information to sail the seas to find fish. The best of two worlds.

Rather then being told Tok waters have these fish. Tram wates have these. And of course Fel waters have double resource fish.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

UO already has its own built in calendar (UO Stratics - Time).

Just to clarify, while UO has its own built-in clock that can be used to make a realistic calendar from, that link you point to is GM Eidelon's screwed up interpretation of what might be considered a "calendar," and was thrown together, is entirely arbitrary, and goes off of silly notions like a month having 73 days in it.

UO time is compressed by a factor of 12. That much is true. 1 RL day = 12 UO days. Now, clearly RL months have a variance of days, but it's much simpler (and more effective) to simply wax UO months as a non-specific "month" that passes at approximately one month every 2.5 days (this means that December is either cut short or runs long, depending on the month and leap year).

However, and this is where Eidolon got it all screwy, a compression of 1:12 fits perfectly with 1 RL month = 1 UO year (I mean, there are 12 months, after all). Eidolon got all screwy for some bizarre reason, and most RP circles don't recognize his strange calendar as an official calendar for anything other than a UO Outhouse.

UO has no in-game calendar... only in-game time compression. It would be fairly easy to make an approximate calendar that does nothing more than call on the system clock to determine the date, and it could be glossed over as early March, mid March, and late March rather than March 23. In any case, there's no precedent -- other than Eidolon and his special mushrooms -- for 73 days per month. Ever.

 

[Frarc]

If people don't need to learn not to try to get everything new in the first week.


I still got alot to get/gather see from the SA expansion. I even need to get stuff from the ML expansion. No rush . I want to have fun in the first place. Not work work work grind grind grind all day.

 

[cdavbar]

After playing this game for a long time, it becomes like watching movies : you've seen it before. In UO, its that you've done it all before.

I am not without adventure in this game. I've had accounts for 11 years now, but have only played off and on during that time due to work and school. While this means that I couldn't enjoy the game as much during that time, it also means that there is little that bores me in the game.

........

Admittedly, treasure hunting has always been my favorite. The loot used to be awful, but I kept with it for the adventure of spawing creatures to fight.

Ditto, I have played for years, done a lot, but yet due to family, school, work there are soo many things to still do. There is always something to do when i am on and it is rarely boring.

Finally getting boosts to thunting and now fishing will be even better as those were always my favorite things to do!

It only gets old to the people that do it to farm and make money, if you have a passion for that skill or aspect it never gets old!

 

[Trebr Drab]

Just to clarify, while UO has its own built-in clock that can be used to make a realistic calendar from, that link you point to is GM Eidelon's screwed up interpretation of what might be considered a "calendar," and was thrown together, is entirely arbitrary, and goes off of silly notions like a month having 73 days in it.

UO time is compressed by a factor of 12. That much is true. 1 RL day = 12 UO days. Now, clearly RL months have a variance of days, but it's much simpler (and more effective) to simply wax UO months as a non-specific "month" that passes at approximately one month every 2.5 days (this means that December is either cut short or runs long, depending on the month and leap year).

However, and this is where Eidolon got it all screwy, a compression of 1:12 fits perfectly with 1 RL month = 1 UO year (I mean, there are 12 months, after all). Eidolon got all screwy for some bizarre reason, and most RP circles don't recognize his strange calendar as an official calendar for anything other than a UO Outhouse.

UO has no in-game calendar... only in-game time compression. It would be fairly easy to make an approximate calendar that does nothing more than call on the system clock to determine the date, and it could be glossed over as early March, mid March, and late March rather than March 23. In any case, there's no precedent -- other than Eidolon and his special mushrooms -- for 73 days per month. Ever.

Agreed. Some day I might sit down and work out a calendar, and play with it to see what you end up with for Leap Years and maybe Pass Years, in UO terms.

I always wanted to see an official, in game system. That could be used for lore, stories, etc. But more than that, it could be used for special events based on moon cycles and time. Like once a UO year being able to do special things inside the game based on special days.

 

[Jhym]

But... that's what we had originally. NOTHING was ever explained, which is where all the fan sites and stratics came from.

Then the devs got caught by the simple fact that if you make a game too tough to start (ie nobody knows WHAT to do and HOW to do it) then people don't try your game.

Not to mention people whined anytime new stuff was added without any explanation, or called support to ask where Raven got his WhizzBang shield and is it an exploit. So from their end, it's simpler to give us most of the basics, and add in just a couple of things that are not obvious.

Not saying I like that, however, I can understand why they do it.

Of course you DO understand, the first time they put out a booster with no explanation or specs and you complain about not knowing anything about it, we will have plenty of derision to lay on your doorstep.

 

[Babble]

Maybe we are just scared as the last time they put things out with little info was AOS.
SWG players also still cringe at the mention of the unannounced New Game Enhancement

 

[Ox AO]

UO has lost its edge. The edge was danger. Replaced by security and little risk.

Argue with me or not. I am right. The game has strengths and therefore, I stay and others do.

The strengths, custom building, persistant world (sandbox). I moved to being a mechant.

We now have the High-Seas booster. What will happen?

OK this....

Week one everyone gets a ship.
Week one we get the rarest, newest stuff and sell it to those that dont have the expansion.
Week one we enjoy the ships and complain of bugs.

Week two: we run our ships to find all the new monsters and battle.

Week three: bordem sets in because nothing is really random, the monsters are predictable and the news stuff saturates the market.

Week four: We still like the cool ships and firing cannons but there is really nothing to do.

The end. We now have ships that look cool and have a much easy cooler mode of transportation to hunt treasure chests. Which I think will be the secret boost in the expansion... SOS loot.


Why write this? Just my opinion as the 30 other threads. Anyones opinion is right. UO really needs to add a purpose to exploring and visiting places beyond the static quest, spawn, and trival event. I noticed this didnt seem to be addressed in the Town Halls.

What is so hard about making adventure part of the game (through the whole game) not JUST HIGH-SEAS ADVENTURE.

Ive acquired so much. I am bitter. (not really) but you get the point.

I agree the risk been striped away but 4 weeks is a long time playing anything for an extra $15.

 

[Amren]

Week three: bordem sets in because nothing is really random, the monsters are predictable and the news stuff saturates the market.

Well yeah. As soon as a monster is introduced that requires more then 1 person to kill, everyone waffles and whines about it.

My friends and I owned SA in less then 2 weeks because it was lame and easy. 3 of us. Completed (more or less) an expansion that took probably over 1 year to make.

 

[LordDrago]

UO has lost its edge. The edge was danger. Replaced by security and little risk.

One note on this point. Security is available, but if you want danger, you can have as much or as little as you want:

Trammel to "easy" for you, live entirely in fel

Insurance takes away an adrenaline rush for you? Don't use it, or only insure a portion of your stuff.

Don't like all the new items? Don't use them.


This being said, there are some limitations. You may not be able to go all out PvP if you don't use hte best items (or near best). Maybe the danger is too much to go without insurance if you want to, if you still need high end items.

However.....unless you are alone in your thinking, there are other people you should be able to band together with to follow some basic "rules". Put some guilds together, and go to war. As a matter of fact, it may be possible to have a "classic guild" with rules in place that limit items, skills, etc. Fel would be very dangerous to move through if caught out in the open, but within the guild, it could be open combat. Not exactly like a classic shard, but perhaps someone should give it a try.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

can I have your stuff (put it on layaway)?

 

[Frolet]

I don't think it would ever get boring if you could have huge boat fights ^_^.

 

[MalagAste]

Wow...

Oh Ye of such narrow mindedness... I feel for you.

I personally will spend god knows how long obtaining and getting my fishing up to 120... egad that will be tough... twice even...

And I'll VERY much enjoy the new boats... battles at sea... RP Pirates!!!!

Cannons!

Forgive me for being excited about the expansion of my sandbox to include a waterhole!.....

Now the castle will have a moat.

I can see that for "powergamers" who's soul purpose in game is to get stuff.... this could be rather boring rather quickly...

They did say something about rare fish being caught in special places. Like Doom.

Finding and fishing up all the special fishies will be fun.

Eventually yes I may oneday obtain all the special fishies.... but will it be in 3 weeks? I rather doubt it.

Will it be in 3 months? Again highly doubtful.

In 3 months will there be talk of the next "bonus pack"? Maybe..... wonder what it might include. Hum...



I guess what it all boils down to is this:

What are your goals in-game?

What makes the game "fun" for you?


I suppose for me my goals have been rather simple.... RP, more RP, some hunting... EM event fun... Having fun with friends... working on all my dozens of characters. Building skills, building characters, and building fiction...



And finally the game is what you make of it. If you are only happy obtaining stuff then I suppose after awhile you will be bored. If your only goal in-game is to have this or that item then you will be bored. If your only goal is to have X amount of gold you will be bored.

Perhaps one should rethink ones goals. Take the blinders off that cause you to be so narrow of vision and see the broader big picture.

The boats will always be there... the cannons will be waiting to be fired... whether you fire them at monsters or you fire them at your enemies... they will be waiting to be fired.


I see the expansion rather like a field of dreams.... if you build it they will come... So the DEV's build us a nice new plaything.... and it is our job to take that and turn it into a field of dreams. Surprise them with our creativity and thinking and then turn the table and inspire them to create something new for us to use.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Agreed. Some day I might sit down and work out a calendar, and play with it to see what you end up with for Leap Years and maybe Pass Years, in UO terms.

Ra'Dian already did this actually. Its what drives the date at the top of the news page at Ultima Online Roleplaying Community - Great Lakes Shard It is currently "Mid March, BY 456" as of the time of this posting.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

One note on this point. Security is available, but if you want danger, you can have as much or as little as you want:

Trammel to "easy" for you, live entirely in fel

Insurance takes away an adrenaline rush for you? Don't use it, or only insure a portion of your stuff.

Don't like all the new items? Don't use them.


This being said, there are some limitations. You may not be able to go all out PvP if you don't use hte best items (or near best). Maybe the danger is too much to go without insurance if you want to, if you still need high end items.

However.....unless you are alone in your thinking, there are other people you should be able to band together with to follow some basic "rules". Put some guilds together, and go to war. As a matter of fact, it may be possible to have a "classic guild" with rules in place that limit items, skills, etc. Fel would be very dangerous to move through if caught out in the open, but within the guild, it could be open combat. Not exactly like a classic shard, but perhaps someone should give it a try.

Drag what your missing is the addition of the above, not the subtraction. Lets face it I can go play Siege. I can load up on stuff and go PvP uninsured.

The difference is... the game changed from this is the risk and we are all in the same boat to you suggesting I just go naked. Which you have a good point.

Once you add something into a game, you lose something. Insurance, trammel, etc caused UO to lose its edge. Lots of other things could have been instituted to create "safety". UO went the extreme.

Should I go naked or uninsured. Why? The addition of the above changed the nature of the game. The nature of the game was risk.

That being said. I do other things the game offers. I will still play.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Well yeah. As soon as a monster is introduced that requires more then 1 person to kill, everyone waffles and whines about it.

My friends and I owned SA in less then 2 weeks because it was lame and easy. 3 of us. Completed (more or less) an expansion that took probably over 1 year to make.

Exactly.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Wow...

Oh Ye of such narrow mindedness... I feel for you.

I personally will spend god knows how long obtaining and getting my fishing up to 120... egad that will be tough... twice even...

And I'll VERY much enjoy the new boats... battles at sea... RP Pirates!!!!

Cannons!

Forgive me for being excited about the expansion of my sandbox to include a waterhole!.....

Now the castle will have a moat.

I can see that for "powergamers" who's soul purpose in game is to get stuff.... this could be rather boring rather quickly...

They did say something about rare fish being caught in special places. Like Doom.

Finding and fishing up all the special fishies will be fun.

Eventually yes I may oneday obtain all the special fishies.... but will it be in 3 weeks? I rather doubt it.

Will it be in 3 months? Again highly doubtful.

In 3 months will there be talk of the next "bonus pack"? Maybe..... wonder what it might include. Hum...



I guess what it all boils down to is this:

What are your goals in-game?

What makes the game "fun" for you?


I suppose for me my goals have been rather simple.... RP, more RP, some hunting... EM event fun... Having fun with friends... working on all my dozens of characters. Building skills, building characters, and building fiction...



And finally the game is what you make of it. If you are only happy obtaining stuff then I suppose after awhile you will be bored. If your only goal in-game is to have this or that item then you will be bored. If your only goal is to have X amount of gold you will be bored.

Perhaps one should rethink ones goals. Take the blinders off that cause you to be so narrow of vision and see the broader big picture.

The boats will always be there... the cannons will be waiting to be fired... whether you fire them at monsters or you fire them at your enemies... they will be waiting to be fired.


I see the expansion rather like a field of dreams.... if you build it they will come... So the DEV's build us a nice new plaything.... and it is our job to take that and turn it into a field of dreams. Surprise them with our creativity and thinking and then turn the table and inspire them to create something new for us to use.

I dont so much disagree with you. I found other stuff in the game to do. But really, raising our skills from 100 to 120. Whats next 150?

Random fish is a great idea and it will add some fun. My point is in 4 weeks the details will be everywhere and those fish you seek will be available for 1 million gold. And next month 500k and 100k and eventually we will become bored of the stacks of fish.

What if the fish actually grew over the years. What if we could hook 900 stone fish. What if they could cross-bred? What if they could be gutted to find rare shinny items?

What if alchemists could make unique explosive oils or medicines from the fish oils or toxins. What if we didnt know what could be crafted and had to experiment?

Now RPing getting them yourself... thats all fine and good.

I actually think my blinders are off. We shouldnt know what can be fished up. We should have to learn. We could have NPCs that evaluate items for us or maybe give us a skill that evaluates items.

Will pirates be able to take and destroy your boat? I hope so. What can you scuttle? Maybe its random. I doubt it.

Pirate battles will always be fun. How much fun?


My goal is to walk east from my steps and find new adventure and new items. Not recall fight rinse recall fight. Or click click click reward.

UO is missing that. Add some random adventuring into the booster.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Agreed. Some day I might sit down and work out a calendar, and play with it to see what you end up with for Leap Years and maybe Pass Years, in UO terms.

Ra'Dian already did this actually. Its what drives the date at the top of the news page at Ultima Online Roleplaying Community - Great Lakes Shard It is currently "Mid March, BY 456" as of the time of this posting.

Is there a description of it anywhere? I'd like to see how it works, so I can use it too.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Is there a description of it anywhere? I'd like to see how it works, so I can use it too.

I can provide you the base formula for it... the one on UORPC is slightly more accurate than the one on Tomes of Sosaria because I never fixed a slight miscalculation in it.

But, in effect, it cycles a month through every 2.5 days (which is 30 days). For months that have 31 days, it simply continues to call it December, and February has a really short December.

I do it that way for simplicity sake because it aligns with 1 month = 1 year (or the 1:12 time compression UO displays... as in-game, 2 hours = 1 day, thus 1 day = 12 Britannian Days or 1:12).

The years are based off of September 1997 being the year 300 and supported by the celebration of the 300th Anniversary of the Defeat of Mondain happening in September 1999 (BY 324). I think somewhere a source indicated that British had ruled for 24 years before the defeat of Mondain, but I can't quite remember exactly where that came from. The model was from The Hansonian Institute, which most RPers on GL took to, and I understand that many RP groups outside of GL use the 1:12 compression simply because that's what actually exists in game. At worst, the Hansonian calendar could be argued to be off by a few years, dependent upon how long we presume British was ruler of Britannia before Mondain's defeat.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Is there a description of it anywhere? I'd like to see how it works, so I can use it too.

I can provide you the base formula for it... the one on UORPC is slightly more accurate than the one on Tomes of Sosaria because I never fixed a slight miscalculation in it.

But, in effect, it cycles a month through every 2.5 days (which is 30 days). For months that have 31 days, it simply continues to call it December, and February has a really short December.

I do it that way for simplicity sake because it aligns with 1 month = 1 year (or the 1:12 time compression UO displays... as in-game, 2 hours = 1 day, thus 1 day = 12 Britannian Days or 1:12).

The years are based off of September 1997 being the year 300 and supported by the celebration of the 300th Anniversary of the Defeat of Mondain happening in September 1999 (BY 324). I think somewhere a source indicated that British had ruled for 24 years before the defeat of Mondain, but I can't quite remember exactly where that came from. The model was from The Hansonian Institute, which most RPers on GL took to, and I understand that many RP groups outside of GL use the 1:12 compression simply because that's what actually exists in game. At worst, the Hansonian calendar could be argued to be off by a few years, dependent upon how long we presume British was ruler of Britannia before Mondain's defeat.

So, in UO, the 7 months that have 31 days in would be like leap years. Only instead of just adding 1 day, we're adding 12 days (since a real life day is 12 days in UO).

And in February, we're "skipping" 24 days, but on real life leap years we're only "skipping" 12 days.
Actually, since Feb. 28th (RL) would end at noon in UO, we'd be adding the remainder of 6 more days in UO to finish that RL day, so in UO terms Feb. would be skipping 18 days, and on leap years skipping 6 days.

I'd go with this. We'd be adding "leap" years and "skip" years and maybe a "leap-skip" (+12-18=-6) year every 4 RL years (every 48 UO years). This is on a RL monthly basis, the UO year.

And I'd consider that it's little wonder that the Time Lord wants to straighten out this mess, heh.

 

[cdavbar]

One note on this point. Security is available, but if you want danger, you can have as much or as little as you want:

Trammel to "easy" for you, live entirely in fel

Insurance takes away an adrenaline rush for you? Don't use it, or only insure a portion of your stuff.

Don't like all the new items? Don't use them.

.